the new year

It seems like yesterday we were dropping our son off at the group home. In a little more than 10 days, he will be moving home. I am so excited, as is the rest of the family. He has made so many positive strides in the last 6 months that I can't believe sometimes that he is the same kid. Kudos to the staff at the care facility that took him in, took the time to get to know him and through him, got to know our family. The work that they do is fantastic. I would be remiss if I thought that there would be no bumps in the road. But bumps in the road is what leads to a good life. A life well lived. Now, when he comes home, he will be returning to public school. How his life is will depend in a large part on how they treat him, and how he responds to what happens in the district. Of course, our response to events in his life will determine a large portion of his success. We have a new rule in our house. You can't speak bad about the school in our house. Why? negativity feeds on itself. by promoting the bad things, we bring nothing positive to the table about having to spend time each day at the school. If all the kids hear and say is negative, why would they be excited to go there? and shouldn't school be a good place to go? This doesn't mean that we are going to rest on our laurels. We are still going to be vigilant. We are still going to be outspoken about what goes on in our district, but we also will be mindful of how we speak in front of the kids. They know that there are issues in the school system, but they also need to know that school and education is a negative thing. They need to learn through us that there is an appropriate way of dealing with things. It is my hope that this lesson will not fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. School and education are an integral part of the american dream. It is out duty as parents to help the kids be excited about learning. That said, if the school does something that is contrary to the education plan for any of our kids, I will be screaming loud and hard about it. If necessary, my wife and I are both fully capable of home-schooling our children at any point in their scholastic life. We choose not to at this point because the kids need social skills. They need to interact with other people their age. More later,Happy New Year everybody.

a moment of brilliance

Every once in a while, not often mind you, but once in a while I am struck with flashes of brilliance.

When I talked to the psychiatrist this morning, I complained about how people were requesting records for our son from the hospital. Interesting thing happened then. She pulled up our son's file and was able to tell me exactly when records were sent to the residential facility where he is currently placed. Interesting. So I have a call into her office to determine when records were sent to the elementary school. :)

One of the tenets upon which the neglect and abuse charge was determined the way it was related to how the school requested records from the psychiatrist and never received them. If those records were purged from his elementary school file as I suspect they were, they would have a record of them at least being sent to the school.

I will be filing an appeal, but the more ammunition I can provide in the documentation for the appeal the better. How bad would it be for the school to be caught in a lie where records were doctored?

M return to school.

So now I got them to admit that they new he was coming back to school today. Yet no one has talked to me about timing. His whole world at school is changing, shouldn't we plan for that? he is going from being in a regular classroom to spending most of his time in the resource room. Yet, no one has contacted us to confirm, or plan for his return.

I asked for an updated IEP for M, and received what was called a tentative schedule in return. Today when I confirmed his return, I am told to consult he schedule, because while they knew he was coming back, they had no idea that he was coming half days today and tomorrow. While I am positive that we discussed it, we did not communicate in writing, so nothing exists to record the conversation except my memory.

I view written communication from them with disdain, because it often feels condescending in nature. It is really difficult to keep the sarcasm out of my emails and other communication. When he has problems again, will it be his fault entirely, or a combination of factors that occur?